Beginner's Guide to Abysia MA

[moderation]

I'm wondering specifically how much value the 2AN+MR damage from the death weapons has for your troops. If you just care about your mages giving afflictions, Death 8 could be a cheaper alternative. Also, I'm wonder about cases where a death bless could interfere with fire/frost brand effects on your demonbred thugs.

Is idea is that anything that can't be killed by your resource intensive capital-only sacreds will at least have afflictions? The downside is that your sacreds will also be dead and they are hard to mass. I'm a little skeptical, but I suppose it could have situational uses.

Which battlefield spells really benefit from an affliction bonus? Fire storm and a death bless on the other hand may be handy, but in most situations, I'd rather have the enemy dead rather than afflicted. It seems like the purpose of low and mid level evocations spells is either to kill the enemy or not. Maybe Heat from Hell is another candidate, but if you get to the point where fatigue is doing damage, they are probably all dead anyway... If you are struggling to kill the enemy this way, I think you may already be in trouble...

Maybe it depends on what you're fighting though. If you're dealing with giants, SC, or hydras afflictions could useful. When dealing with chaff, probably not as much.

Personally, I am not sure about the value taking blesses with Abysia. Good scales and a decent awake pretender for early expansion are probably more optimal, since their basic troops are powerful as is. My main concern of course is the question of what is most optimal.

[dirtywick]

I think a strength bonus from blood and that they dual wield has a good synergy with a high death bless. Plus they can cast Gateway later to get the sacreds around pretty easily.

I don't know, maybe not the best strategy. Just an option available.

[JimMorrison]

Well bear in mind, the damage from the Death bless is AN, and they get 2 attacks. So while beating on particularly tough thugs, even hits that don't do damage otherwise will still do magic damage, and therefor cause afflictions.

I'm not sure if it's fair to say that the mid level evocations are only useful for straight kills. It's quite common that Falling Fires or Fire Cloud can be used to soften an army (not fully intentionally, just the mages spamming them loosely around, as any kills reduce the efficiency of casting again in the same spot), so that when the lines clash, no one is likely to survive the first hit they take. However with the Afflictions, you get Cripples and Limps which will break their formations and pin troops inside the Fire Clouds, and many of the other afflictions reduce attack or defense capacity, thereby increasing the efficiency of your infantry once the lines do meet.

And then you have single target spells like Combustion and Incinerate that have 100 Precision, so if you are coming up against sacred giants, or top end summons, you can really be sure to weaken them as you get your first licks in.


Now, really, it all comes down to how you want to play, and what you want to push. Also, what you expect to face in the game. Obviously if you fear starting next to a rusher, a Death bless is going to be a valuable deterrent, as their key units are nowhere near as replaceable as they would be in the late game. As the game progresses, it becomes a matter of what you really want to stress in the game. And then also I guess what it really comes down to overall is whether you want your pretender to be awake or not. With an awake SC you of course will want to min/max as much as possible, especially in terms of what you can accomplish in the early game. Like I said, my philosophy with Abysia is that their troops are solid and dependable, so you don't -need- an awake SC, so personally I would prefer to have him Dormant, and roll those extra points into perhaps D9 or E9, because I would feel that the direct boost to the pretender's abilities are the final key to it being "cost effective".


And yeah Dirty, I've played around with a Fountain of Blood with Abysia, I like the dousing bonus, and a few extra strength is nice.

With a Dormant VQ you can get 6D/6B with decent scales, but with a Dormant Fountain of Blood you can do 6D/6B with Dom7 O3/P2/H3/G1/L1/M1 which I don't know, looks really solid to me. Gets you +200% Affliction rate, so 3x as many isn't too bad, and 3 Str. And 6 in both leaves you in a good spot for most spells, as well as giving you basically full access to all Blood summons AND Death summons..... not sure if that's just too much to worry about, but with the research bonus, why not, eh?

I'm curious though Moderation, what sort of pretender would you actually lean towards?

[moderation]

I wonder how the MR damage from death weapons is calculated. If it counts as an extra attack, rather than a damage boost, then a Lava Warrior gets 4 chances to cause afflictions each turn, which is pretty brutal. I also wonder if the MR damage can cause afflictions when it is resisted, but I assume not.

JimMorrison said:
I'm curious though Moderation, what sort of pretender would you actually lean towards?

Do you mean for MA Abysia or just in general? I think an awake PoD or Cyclops is probably still more optimal for the early game expansion boost, since most experienced players seem to favor these two. I considered the Scorpion King, but wasn't impressed with his limited slots. Fire doesn't seem like a useful path either. The Abysian warlock pretender also seems inferior in most senses to the Great Enchantress, which is what I would go for when I want a rainbow.

But I'd also consider a Lich, Master Lich or Ghost King as good choices. The last two can help your diversity quite a bit, which would seem to boost Abysia's mid-game diversity problems. But I get the feeling that the Ghost King and VQ were more prominent in Dom 2 and that they are generally less useful now. So to answer your question, I tend to follow the optimization crowd and favor the PoD and Cyclops. Which pretender do you favor?

[JimMorrison]

Aye, I thought you were looking more towards an awake expander SC. It would seem that overall the Cyclops is going to be the better choice, since he is FR for the scorching heat of his dominion. Likewise, that's what the Warlock has over the Enchantress. Though with the rainbow chassis, they are less often committed to real combat I suppose, sitting safely back doing summons and globals, rather than risking it all on random luck with 10hp.

But all things considered, like I was saying, I don't think they really -need- an awake SC. I like the Fountain of Blood, as I feel the really strong scales may not have you expanding quite as quickly as a Clops, but that the income and resources will set you up for solid mid game troop and mage recruitment, and then the dousing bonus gives you a solid benefit to your late game position. Obviously Abysian Infantry aren't the optimal fastest expanders available, but they are so survivable that neither are they the slowest. I think for optimization then, the high scales with dousing bonus will add the most power through the duration of the game. Bearing in mind that it seems the general feeling towards Abysia is that they start out "fairly strong" (not exceedingly so), and slowly lose relevance as the game progresses, so I really feel that giving up a little at the start may be the key to a better shot at victory in the end.

Though I have to say, having to choose between 6D/6B or 6E/6B on the Fountain is not an easy task..... For 24 more points (maybe drop to Dom6) the Fountain can go 4E/4D/6B. In this case I'd think that the reinvig would be worth the lower Affliction bonus. Though at that point, might swap it to 4E/4S/6B. If you've Arcane Probed everything by year 3, you could use Acashic Record on your wastes and swamps for bulk gems to alchemize into pearls, if nothing else.

I will admit however, I have a soft spot for the Cyclops, he was my first successful SC.

[dirtywick]

I think the Scorpion King is cool; he's a giant scorpion monster, what's not to like? Mainly Phoenix Pyre and cheap access to the little boost from the fire bless were the driving factors behind that choice. Plus, kind of nice to be able to use those fire gems you'll probably have way, way too many of later.

I don't like an awake pretender with Abysia, mainly because there's just not enough points to get everything I want out of it.

[JimMorrison]

Scorpion King does have some serious coolness factor, that's undeniable.

[moderation]

JimMorrison said:
Though I have to say, having to choose between 6D/6B or 6E/6B on the Fountain is not an easy task..... For 24 more points (maybe drop to Dom6) the Fountain can go 4E/4D/6B. In this case I'd think that the reinvig would be worth the lower Affliction bonus. Though at that point, might swap it to 4E/4S/6B. If you've Arcane Probed everything by year 3, you could use Acashic Record on your wastes and swamps for bulk gems to alchemize into pearls, if nothing else.

Acashic Record seems awfully expensive... though it might be worth it in the wastes. But I thought swamps had really poor gem prospects.

By the way, the PoD's 0 encumbrance should mean that he doesn't have to worry much about heat fatigue except when buffing. He does seem slightly less durable than the Clops as the game progresses however...

[Edi]

Swamps and wastes have the best gem potential, followed by mountains and forests. See the site searching threads linked from the strategy index.

[JimMorrison]

Wastes and swamps are supposed to have the overall highest site frequency, IIRC. And yeah, Acashic Record is pretty spendy, but in certain situations can be relatively lucrative.

PoD does have a low (really low ) base Enc, but he needs real armor sooner than the Clops does, in fact an E9 Clops is at 29 base already, and doesn't actually ever "need" armor to still be better protected than almost anyone else. My favorite for the Cyclops is a Robe of Shadows, though upgrade options are fairly limited if all you have is an E9 Clops and then the F/S/B that Abysia gets. It's very complicated really, such limited forging options are going to be a hangup in the late game no matter how you slice it. And taking an awake SC doesn't tend to be the best way to get much diversity, so far we're only talking about adding either E or D, D doesn't give much SC gear, E does but mister Cyclops will have to do some site searching to exploit it. Seems to me having Acashic Record ready is more useful if you hope to get some decent indie mages, and you want to get gems for them to forge with as fast as you can, especially if they don't necessarily get you 2 in a path so they can remote search.

So hard to really expect to make them truly competitive against some of the more well rounded nations out there.